Kenya: Jubilee Killing Sugar Industry

LUGARI MP Ayub Savula has accused the Jubilee government of being behind problems facing the sugar industry.

Savula said the government has neglected the sector by failing to review the single customs protocol taxation regime by East African Community member states.

"It is unfair for Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich to put in place taxation measures for tea and ignore sugar just because the crop benefits people from Western," he said.

The MP said the government is plotting to stagnate the economic growth of counties in Western Kenya.

Savula said unscrupulous traders have imported more than 250 tonnes of sugar.

He said they repack the sugar into bags of a Ugandan sugar company and sell it locally.

Savula was speaking at Mukuyu Primary School where he presided over a CDF harambee on Saturday.

He donated four dairy cows to women's groups under the programme 'a cow for a polling station'.

Savula said each of the 91 polling stations will get a dairy cow to promote dairy farming.

He said Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Felix Koskei ignored a directive by the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture to write to Rotich seeking a delay in the protocol to allow the sugar industry to recover.

The protocol started operating on September 15. Savula said the regime will hurt the Kenyan sugar industry as the cost of production in Brazil is half that in Kenya, making Kenya's sugar too expensive.

The cost of producing a tonne of sugar in Brazil is $350 (Sh31,000) and $700 (Sh62,000) in Kenya.

Savula said the regime will kill the sugar industry in Western Kenya and increase poverty, which could result in an upsurge in insecurity.

source: allafrica